Can we ask whether Hades is literal or figurative?

Question

This question is seeking to apply the Biblical text and is therefore off topic. This recently came up regarding the edits made to a question.

The primary issue to me is applying the text to ask about the (present) existence or non-existence of a metaphysical construct/place (Hades). That is off topic here. Asking what the original audience would have thought or trying to determine authorial intent would all be fine—but asking about whether or not Hades exists will derail this into theological and metaphysical discourse rather than textual study as defined in our scope.

It may be helpful to clarify some distinctions that can sometimes be subtle.

Linguistics Primer

There was some discussion about the edit to this post and it was suggested to instead ask,

What textual/contextual indications do we have to determine whether Hades is literal or figurative?

However, the argument was made that asking in this manner is intended "to ask for textual and contextual indications to help discern whether a word is literal or figurative." While the intent here is correct (to ask about the meaning of a word), the way the question is communicated is equally as important as the intention of the OP to ensure the question is properly understood by those desiring to answer it (and on topic).

The field of linguistics has shown us that words are symbols that stand for (or suggest) ideas, beliefs, actions, material entities, etc. If someone asks, "Is Hades real?" No one will interpret that as "Is the word itself real?" but will instead discuss the referent the word symbolizes.

Therefore asking about a word will almost always be understood as asking about what the word symbolizes. If this is not the OP's intention, this needs to be clearly communicated.

An example dialogue will be helpful. The dialogue is intentionally simplistic but illustrates the point well:

Customer: "Can I have fries with that?"

Cashier: "Sure, here is the word."

Customer: "No, I meant I actually want fries. To eat."

Cashier: "Oh sorry! I thought you were just asking about the word itself, not the actual little sticks of potatoes to which it refers!"

This is a ridiculous exchange which is highly unlikely to ever occur. However, being able to see a simple example may help shed light on more complex examples. If you're asking about a word but not about the referent to which it may refer, this requires careful communication.

What Can Be Asked

Let me close with some examples from my perspective:

OFF-TOPIC QUESTIONS:

• "Is Hades literal or figurative in Luke 16:19-31?" — While this is based on a text, the question primarily asks a Truth question, i.e. whether or not the place/construct referred to as Hades is real or not? This type of question does not belong here as it seeks to apply the Biblical text.

• "What textual or contextual indications and hermeneutic considerations would enable folks to discern whether Hades is literal or figurative in Luke 16:19-31?" — Adding lots of terminology doesn't really clarify anything here (just like asking for an 'exegetical interpretation' or a 'hermeneutics consideration' which are equally unclear). The main question is still about "whether Hades is literal or figurative."

ON-TOPIC QUESTIONS:

• "Did the author/interlocutor in Luke 16:19-31 intend for Hades to be understood literally or figuratively?" — The question is no longer about absolute Truth, but rather about authorial intent, which is a good fit here as it can be answered with historical and linguistic information.

• "How would the original audience of Luke 16:19-31 have understood Hades, as a figurative construct of folklore or as a literal place?" — This is good because it focuses on the historical context of the passage and its meaning within that context. Linguistic/philological information about the idea of Hades itself would also be helpful in an answer to this question.

• "What did the word Hades (Ἅιδης/ᾍδης) used in Luke 16:19-31 refer to in first-century Greek?" — This is a linguistic question related to a Biblical text and is thus a good fit here.

Is This Thinking Accurate?

Some quotes from other meta posts that should be taken into account:

• "What makes us different from those sites is that here, our focus is primarily on the process of hermeneutical analysis, not the final output of that process. This distinction is significant and critical for users of this site to understand, but in practice the degrees of implementation are often subtle." (Source)
• "This is a university, not a church/synagogue. We are interested in questions about Biblical texts and the process of translating and interpreting them, not absolute truth(s)." (Source)
• "Religious, theological/doctrinal, ethical [&] liturgical aspects need to be handled as facets of the biblical texts studied by participants of BH.SE in historical, linguistic, and literary terms, and not as aspects of personal conviction, or the belief and praxis of historic and contemporary faith communities." (Source)

This discussion also raised another great question: "Can we define what it means to apply the text?"

I've made my stance and reasoning clear in the on/off topic commentary above. I'm interested in hearing other perspectives.

Answer 1

When I read the question here (even in the original form) it seemed to me that the poster had in mind recent arguments along these sort of lines: "The purpose of this parable isn't to address the nature of the afterlife but to make a statement about a disciple's relationship to money and the poor. Therefore we can't learn anything about Luke's (or Jesus') view of Hades and the afterlife from this story." His question seemed to be probing for an hermeneutical answer to what he saw as an obvious (probably "plain reading") rebuttal to this argument.

I agree that the way the question was originally posed, it needed to be edited; however, my concern with your post here is that the examples you give of off-topic questions do not ring true to my idea of this site's definition. The rest of this post explores that.

With the above mind let me begin by saying that I consider the question "Is Hades literal or figurative in Luke 16:19-31?" to be equivalent in form to a question like this:

• "Is the moon turning to blood literal or figurative in Joel 2:31?"

Or in a completely different literary-critical context:

• "Is Narnia a real place in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe? Or is it something Lucy dreamed?"

These are questions of literary criticism. They are searching for the meaning of a specified text. Whereas I would consider the question, "Is Hades a literal place?" to be a completely different form of question. That would be a question of systematic theology and therefore off-topic here.

Your post seems to indicate that the question would be better framed (and on-topic) if it searched for the author's intent or the original audience's understanding. I disagree.

Consider these three forms of the question:

• "Did the author/interlocutor in Luke 16:19-31 intend for Hades to be understood literally or figuratively?

• "How would the original audience of Luke 16:19-31 have understood Hades: as a figurative construct of folklore or as a literal place?

• "Is Hades literal or figurative in Luke 16:19-31?"

They are all basically getting at the same thing. They all want to know about the meaning of Hades in this particular text. The difference is that the latter question avoids front-loading an epistemology and therefore allows for a wider range of responses.

If someone feels that meaning is located in an author's intent, they are free to answer just as if the question asked about the author's intent. If someone else believes that the author is lost to us and the only source of meaning that remains now is the text itself, they can answer from that perspective. Or if another person believes that a text has no meaning apart from an interpretive community (say the original receiving culture) they are free to answer from that perspective as well. Same if someone believes the locus of meaning is found in the Ideal Reader. Etc...

The former two question-forms, however, front-load epistemology and limit responses to those answers that share a philosophy of meaning and knowledge.

Answer 2

Can we ask whether Hades is literal or figurative?

We can, if (and only if) such a question arises naturally from a specific quoted text. In some cases this question would/could be read as "Does X imply that Hades is literal/figurative in passage Y" or something like that, but there is no reason to impose that sort of deliberately "is this really true" language on questions.

A majority of users of the site will be here with the assumption that the text is True (with a capital T). That doesn't mean it is, or that the contributions of those who participate without those presuppositions are in any way inferior. What it does mean is that the context of the site matters as an aid to communication. These questions are understood (because of the context) and they can result in excellent answers just as much as those couched in pseudo-neutral language, and this is what matters.